


every stitch with love

by AlexSeanchai (EllieMurasaki)



Category: Killdeer - Anne B. Walsh
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elspeth tries to remember something her parents taught her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every stitch with love

**Author's Note:**

> [Primary canon](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382719)—this is set shortly after _Killdeer_ 's conclusion—and [collections containing](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/263117) [subsequent canon](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382721) (both those stories are set some years after _Killdeer_ ).

Elspeth fumbled a knit stitch, tried to fix it, dropped a second stitch, and threw down her knitting in disgust with herself. She'd known how to do this right once. What had _happened_ that she couldn't knit anymore?

Only the answer to that was obvious. Anton's budget had never allotted money for yarn.

Elspeth hummed the song she'd practiced for Free Sky's first public performance, now a week behind them; the song that had earned Elspeth the money to visit the first yarn store she found on a map of the spaceport town. It wouldn't, she'd thought, be right to use the high-quality yarn Fire Valley was accustomed to making for Elspeth's warm-up pieces. She'd join the other women in thread talk when she looked competent again. Which—Elspeth counted stitches and noted that the row she had just finished had more stitches than the row she'd cast on—she presently did not.

"Killdeer?" said Duskdance's voice. "Everyone's wondering where you are. Is everything all right?"

It took a moment to recall that as Elspeth's use-name; like her womanstone pendant, it hung awkward and unfamiliar around her neck. "I'm okay," she said, looking up at her adoptive sister from her seat on her bed. "I just..." The rest of the words choked in her throat.

Duskdance came in and sat down beside Elspeth, beside Killdeer. "I did offer to teach you threadwork," Duskdance reminded her.

"I appreciate that," Killdeer said as she'd said the first time, "and I'll take you up on it, but not now." She glared at her knitting. "I don't want to look like I'm a child just beginning in front of a room full of people who say I'm an adult. And I _know_ how to knit. I _do_."

"When did you learn?" Duskdance asked. "And from whom?"

"My mother taught me," Elspeth answered. "She told me her mother taught her, and her grandmother taught her mother. And if Mama hadn't, Daddy would have. They met in a knitting club in tertiary education before they ever met in classes, they told me—" She stopped, feeling tears beginning.

Duskdance put a warm hand on Elspeth's shoulder.

"I remember," she continued, trying to steady her voice, trying to be Kildeer the woman instead of Elspeth the child, "knitting a scarf for Daddy. It was my first real knitting project, and it wasn't a very good scarf—the stitches were different sizes and somehow I made a buttonhole in the middle of a row—but he wore it every time he was planetside when it was cold. I remember knitting a shawl for Mama, and she wore it to formal dinners at their university. I should be able to knit now. But my fingers don't remember. _I_ don't remember."

"Like many things," Duskdance said quietly, "the fault for that rests on Anton's shoulders."

"I know," said Elspeth, crying.

"And from all I have heard of the Doctors Kolesar," Duskdance went on, "they would not feel that you are dishonoring their memory by asking help to remember something they taught you."

Elspeth, surprised, snorted, almost a laugh. "Subtle, aren't you?"

Duskdance smiled. "I try."

Elspeth looked down at her flawed knitting. "I still don't want to look like a beginner when all you women must be experts."

"And just when do you think our daughters learn threadwork, if not at their mother's knee when the women are discussing weighty matters?" Duskdance inquired. "No one expects you to be skilled in this, sister. Your study has not focused on spinning nor weaving nor crochet—nor knitting, through no fault of your own."

Elspeth nodded and took a deep breath, and Killdeer looked up. "I think I would rather try to remember knitting on my own," she said. "But could you teach me to crochet?"


End file.
